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Till-: Mil.I OKI) NKWSJOSEPH OF THE NEZ PERCESTHE LEADER OF A LOST CAUSElly ELMO SCOTT WATSON PEAK of “The Leader of a Lost Cause and one's ' ' ■ mind naturally turns to thul knightly gentleman. | I and soldier, Robert E. Lot', and recalls the gnl-I lant struggle which he and his men in gray car-m ried ii in am:.I almost overwhelming odds hackin 1864-65. But America produced another to whom that title may appropriately be given and1 he deserves to be honored for the very same rea-| | sons that Lee is held in such high esteem by his fellow-. Americans. His name was Joseph and he was chief of thetor the Nez Perce was a chief named Lawyer whose following included only about a third of the whole tribe. Among the 38 chiefsCHIEF JOSEPH OF THE NEZ FEBCESNez Perce Indians.It does not detract in the | least from the fame of the Virginian to place alongside 1 of him in our pantheon of the ’ truly great this red-skinned warrior from the Oregon - | country. And, if we can be-l lieve the testimony of those best competent to judge—the army olVicers who fought against both—it is not rating Joseph too high to place him there. In their opinion, his military genius was of the same high order as Lee’s.In fact, the Nex Perce leader has been compared favorably to the greatest generals of all time and frequently referred to as the Red Napoleon.” Except for the fact that this is a tribute to him as a military leader, giving him such a title is scarcely complimentary to the Indian. For it is doubtful if anyone would say the Corsican was distinguished for the nobility of his character. But Chief Joseph was—and in that respect he again deserves a place beside Robert E. Lee.The deeds of the Confederate commander have been the theme of many a historian and more than one biographer has told his I life story. The deeds of Chief Joseph have been recited many times by historians of our Indian wars but it was not until recently ! that a full-length word portrait of him has appeared. It is Chief Joseph — The Biography of a Great Indian. written by Chester Anders Fee and published by Wilson-Erickson of New York.A VicUm of Injustice.A great man makes history for his people. soys the biographer in his first chapter. There have been great men in : the world who have preserved the names of their peoples from oblivion: Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce was among them. His life is history, not only for his own Nez Perce, but for white Amcri-i cans as well. We feel shame for . the part we played in that his-1 tory. and yet take pride in the i fact that it was this country and no other that produced Joseph. Let his life be known and recognized for what it was. It is the only way justice can be done for the wrongs he and his people suffered at our hands.”1 And Col. C. E. S. Wood, who i served in the campaign against the Nez Perces and who has written an introduction to the a I book, says: Although this book 0 is the tale of a military genius | and the thriiling and tragic ad-, ventures he shared with his peo-B ! pie, its chief virtue is a moral r j one. It shows in one concentrated a example the measure of the jus-j tice dispensed to the natives of the New World by our civiliza-. tion. Until 1877 the Nez Perce In-j dians boasted truly that white 5 men's blood had never been j shed by them. Their reward was j dispossession, exile, bullets and disease, and all because the rulers of white men—politicians—regarded their favor as less valuable than that of a hundred or so white land-grabbers with votes.When Lewis and Clark reached the Northwest they found the Nez Perce roaming over the vast region in Idaho. Oregon and Washington which includes the valleyss GEN. NELSON A. MILES g of the Snake. Salmon. Clearwaters and Grande Ronde rivers. In 1855!_ Gov. Isaac I. Stevens of Washington territory made a treaty ' with the Nex Perces confirmingtheir title to their ancestral home, but in 1863 by a new treaty with , the tribes of the Northwest the, lands of the Nez Perces were, greatly reduced.The only signer of this treatywho declined to sign the treaty was one called Old Joseph. He refused to live on the proposed reservation and continued to occupy the fertile territory, especially the beautiful Wallowa valley, which his people loved most of oil. When he died In 1872 he bequeathed to hi3 son, Young Joseph, (whose Indian name was Hin - mah - too - yah - lah-kckht — Thunder Strikes Out From the Water), his love for Hie Wallowa valley and his opposition to giving it up to the encroaching whites.During the next four years there was constant friction between the settlers and the Indians and in nearly every case the whites were the aggressors. Indian women were insulted; Indian cattle and horses stolen and in several Instances peacable Indians were murdered. Finally a commission, which had been appointed to investigate the troubles between the settlers and the Indians, decided in 1876 that all the Nez Perces must go on reservation assigned to them and Gen. O. O. Howard, commander of the military department of the Columbia, was ordered to carry out the commission's decision.An Advocate of Peace.After several councils at which Chief Joseph protested in vain ogainst the injustice of the order, he agreed to give up his beloved Wallowa valley and go on the reservation at Lapwai, Idaho.Some of the chiefs wanted to make war on the settlers, but Joseph answered them, No. let my people be quiet. It is too much to do. Better to all live at peace, alive, than for some to lie dead. Do not begin any war. My people, I love you too well to lose you . . . We have our grievances against these white people, but war will only bring more.So he held the more hostile clement in check for awhile. Then on a June day 70 years ago the inevitable happened. In the band of Chief White Bird was a young warrior named Wal-lait-its whose father had been killed by a white man in a dispute over land. During a council on June 13 an old warrior taunted Wal-lait-its thus: “You are so brave! Why don’t you go and show it by killing the man who killed your father?So Wal-lait-its persuaded two other young braves to go with him to the ranch on the Salmon river where lived Richard Divine, the white man who had killed his father. With them as they rode they carried the destiny of seven hundred Nez Perce. The three warriors lay in wait for Divine as he came out of his cabin and shot him down. Next they killed three more settlers working in a hayfield. Then they started back for their camp and— They galloped madly up to a lodge where four chiefs sat in cousultation. Wal-lait-its leaped from his horse and cried. “Why do you sit there like women? The war has already begun. See this fine horse. See this rifie, this saddle, these clothes.I am mad. I have killed the man who killed my father. Get your horses and come on. There is plenty of everything if you only work for it.”Inflamed by their example, otn-er war parties also set out to gam revenge on the white men. Joseph was absent from camp at the time. When he returned he found that all his work for peace was undone. The die was cast. His people were committed to war.Even then he was resolved to make it a defensive war and not an offensive one. He conceived the bold plan of fleeing with his people to Canada, fighting only if the white men barred his road to freedom. On June 16, 1877 heset out on that epic retreat whichwon for him his right to be included among the great captains of history.Before him was a task which, as we look back on it now. seems an impossible one to have accomplished. It was the task of transporting a whole tribe, men. women and children, over a thousand miles or more of the roughest country on the North American continent and breaking through the lines of military barrier which were certain to bethrown out to intercept him. But if Joseph recognized the fact that he was leading a forlorn hope, he gave no sign of it as he marched away toward White Bird canyon at the head of his people.Joseph's First Victory.General Howard acted promptly upon hearing of the murders of the settlers. He began concentrating troops at all strategic points to surround the Nez Perce. The first engagement took place on June 17 when Captain Perry and a small body of troops attacked Joseph's camp in White Bird canyon. Displaying unexpected military skill. Joseph laid a trap for Perry and all but annihilated his command.After this defeat General Howard took the field himself and the chase was on. The story of Joseph's masterly retreat and the way in which he outwitted, outfought and outmarched the troops commanded by General Howard, Colonel Sturgis of the Seventh cavalry and others has been told in detail many times. It need only be briefly summarized hereas follows: The Nez Perce leader was encumbered with women and children whom he refused to desert and allow them to fall into the hands of the soldiers, as he might have done several times to facilitate his flight. His fighting force never at any time exceeded 300 warriors. Yet with these handicaps he fought eleven engagements. five of them pitched battles, and he lost only one. In the other six skirmishes he killed 126 and wounded 140 of the 2,000 soldiers who were on his trail at one time or another with a loss of 151 killed and 88 wounded of his own peiople.Then, having left his pursuers far behind, he stopped 50 miles short of his goal—the Canadian line—in order to give his weary people a chance to rest. He did not know of the approach of General Miles and a fresh force until his camp in the Bear Paw mountains in Montana was attacked on the morning of September 30. For five days the Nez Perce leader and his little band, greatly outnumbered, withstood the attacks of Miles’ soldiers. Finally artillery was brought to bear upon the defenders and on October 4, Chief Joseph realized that his was a lost cause indeed. His speech as he surrendered is historic:I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Tu-hul-hil-sote (the medicine man or “dreamer” who had urged him to go to war) is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men now who say “yes and “no”(vote in the council). He who led the young men (Alikut, his brother) is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people—some of them— have run away to the hills and hare no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find; maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chicis, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.A Broken Promise.Chief Joseph kept his promise. He never fought again—and this despite the fact that he later experienced even greater injustice at the hands of the white men than he had ever known before. General Miles promised him that he should be returned to Idaho. But the government, (those “politicians” listening to the “white land-grabbers with votes) repudiated that pledge.The captives were sent to Fort Leavenworth first, then to a reservation in Indian Territory. It was an unhealthy place for anyone and for these Indians, accustomed to the high altitude of their mountain home, the hot malarious lowlands were a veritable valley of death. Chief Joseph protested that his people would soon be exterminated. General Miles repeatedly demanded that the government keep faithGEN. O. O. HOWARDwith his honored foe. But it was not until 1885 that the Nez Perces were allowed to return to the Northwest and then they were sent to the Colville reservation in Washington, where further troubles awaited them.For the next 20 years Chief Joseph remained as their leader in tiring to adjust to a new mode of life. At one time during this period a white woman visitor showed him a picture of himself taken shortly after the war (it is the portrait reproduced above). He peered at it intently for a moment, then said, “That man died long ago. No doubt, he was right. But his biographer records that he fell suddenly dead on September 21. 1904. Some say it was of a broken heart.G Western Newspaper Union.The Land Over Which the Nez Perce Fought and Fled.
Newspaper Details
Milford News
Milford, Utah, US
Thu, Jun 10, 1937
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Geri L.
NA, 14 Aug 2024
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